Brent oil price also inclined by 2.14%; during May Brent oil declined by 11.19%.

During May 2011 the chart below of the WTI spot oil and Brent oil prices shows that these energy commodities prices didn’t change much and didn’t demonstrate a clear trend in recent weeks.

The premium of Brent oil over WTI: this gap reached on Tuesday, May 24th 13.33$/b. As seen in the chart below, during May, this premium’s variance inclined to 3.18 – the highest level since February. This shows that the premium varied during May more than in recent months.

Euro to USD and crude oil prices during May

One of the strongest correlations between crude oil prices and major currencies remains between Euro to US dollar conversion rate and WTI spot oil prices, as seen in the chart below.

Yesterday, the Euro to US dollar conversion rate bounced back and inclined by 0.37% and reached 1.41.

This rise in the Euro to US dollar conversion rate coincides with the rises of crude oil prices yesterday and their linear correlation during May.

During May, Euro to US dollar conversion rate fell by 4.77%..

The falls in EURO/USD during May are probably related to the concerns over the European debt crisis including the news about the attempts to restructure the Greek debt. the AUD/USD falls is probably related to the uncertainty around the future growth rate of China’s economy and demand for oil from Australia.

Petroleum stocks in the US

The US Energy Information Administration will publish later on today its weekly report on petroleum stocks: Bloomberg reports that the current estimates show that US crude oil stocks decreased by 0.86 million barrels during recent week. In the previous report, US crude oil stocks remained unchanged last week, after they inclined by 6.5 million barrels a week earlier. For the week ending on May 13th the oil stocks remained on 1,774.0 million barrels – the highest level since February 25th, 2011 (See here the recent petroleum report).

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanly raise their oil price forecast

Bloomberg reports that Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan are go long on major commodities: Goldman Sachs increased its forecasts on crude oil (Brent) to 120$ for the next six months and to 130$ for the next 12 months. Morgan Stanly raised its estimates for 2011 by more 20% to 120$.

JP Morgan commodity analyst’s recommends that crude oil will lead the charge in the months to come.

These recommendations are probably among the reasons for the recent rally in crude oil prices in the last couple of days.

World news – oil markets

Europe

The debt crisis in Europe continues: according to Bloomberg, the Greek 10-year government bonds declined very sharply on May 20th and thus the speculation around Greece’s capability in returning its debt is high.

There are also speculations around Europe’s manufacturing growth rate as it is expected to slow down in May. This might suggest that Europe’s demand for crude oil for manufacturing purposes is falling.